Amos: "....I agree that this seems to be the case under certain conditions but I think the truth may be that there is an infinite number f unManifests, from each of which the entire universe may spring. This is much harder to explain. But that's irrelevant."

Now that's what I call, a real itch to post SOMETHING!..anything!!......But, "This is much harder to explain. But that's irrelevant."

I disagree with LH's definitive assertion about the nature of the unManifest. I agree that this seems to be the case under certain conditions but I think the truth may be that there is an infinite number f unManifests, from each of which the entire universe may spring. This is much harder to explain. But that's irrelevant.

Oh, and back to the oneness thing again.....Maybe we are all cells of a larger being...Maybe, just like when cells think the grow independently of the whole natural system, in a body...its called 'cancer'. Maybe the entire being of 'we humans' are infested with 'cancerous' cells. It happens when toxins get into the system..you know, like politics and religion!!!!!...along with some other things....like thinking you are your body, and turning your body over to things it was not intended for, and reaping the STRESS that comes as a result of it!!!

Lewis Carroll wasn't the first to get his hands on Father William. And I think Eiseley has probably read it at least a couple of times here in MOAB because I recall pacing out the few posts to a big number stanza by stanza. About the only thing we haven't done to it is set it to music. Though I suppose if one poked around the depths of YouTube, there's something out there.

There is a legend, written up by Tim O'Brien in his great book "The Things They Carried", about a platoon in Vietnam sent up a mountain to do nothing but observe -- to make no noise at all.

They sat for some days, and then the silence of the jungle on the slopes, cloaked in mist, began to talk to them. They heard music, gongs, many things, and finally they called in an airstrike to silence the silence, expending "about a billion dollars worth of ordnance" so that they wouldn't "go crazy."

True silence is awe inspiring. Many dusks up Kent County on a chilly fall day the wind dies completely and all stops. Nothing moves, not even mice in the leaves. There are no birds chirping, no squirrels nattering, nothing at all. I have snapped my fingers quietly near my ear to confirm that it is actually silent. It is eerie and humbling and peaceful - a strange mix of emotions instilled by nothing.

In the Unmanifest, all are one. In the manifested state, all appear to be separate...like separate notes rising and fading out of the vast and omnipresent field of silence. Each note appears out of silence, sounds, then fades away and vanishes...back into silence. The silence is always there, but you don't notice it while you're focusing on a note or a group of notes.

Silence generally goes pretty much unnoticed...unless one focuses on it deliberately with real attention...or in a moment of inner stillness. Then it becomes very powerful. Without it there as a foundation, the many notes would have no field upon which to make their appearance.

That's what we're like in our manifested lives here. We are like notes arising out of a vast field of silence. When we return to that field, we are said to have "died", but what we have really done is we have rejoined the single state of formless unity that is the silence. Normal birth is birth into (the appearance of) separation. Death is rebirth into Oneness. (in my opinion)

1922, James Joyce, Ulysses Episode 16 " "For the nonce he was rather nonplussed but inasmuch as the duty plainly devolved upon him to take some measures on the subject he pondered suitable ways and means during which Stephen repeatedly yawned."

Now, I have been, on several occasions, nonplussed for the nonce, but it doesn't pay, I tell ya. The nonce never appreciates it, not a word of thanks do you get, nor any repayment. You will never find the nonce being nonplussed for YOU, oh, no. It's not in its character to do that sort of thing for others. My advice is not to invest your efforts there, and to choose instead to be non-plussed for All Eternity, who at least might win a game or two, or even sweep the league.

I love being the hero of your cvreative impulses, Rapp. But I think the earlier versions were definitely lacking. If you had not beat me to it, in the leisure ofyour retirement, I would have written an improvement upon them; but yours will serve for the nonce.

Speaking of the nonce, has anyone seen It? I know I had it just a little while ago, but it seems to have escaped My Attention (in which I had it held fast) and gone off somewhere. Fucking nonce is always up to some damn thing,...

"You are old, father Amos," the young man cried, "And what hair you have left is all puce; You are hailed, father Amos, by bailiffs and cops And I do not believe it a ruse."

"In the days of my youth," father Amos replied, "I remember'd to get out of town fast, And abus'd not my health and my vigour at first, In case her old man caught us at last."

"You are old, father Amos," the young man cried, "And your friends have all passed away. And yet you lament not the friends that are gone; Now tell me the reason, I pray."

"In the days of my youth," father Amos replied, "I framed all of my friends; I thought of the future, whatever I did, So that they would hang for my sins."

"You are old, father Amos," the young man cried, "And life must be hast'ning away; You are cheerful and love to converse upon death; Now tell me the reason, I pray."

"I am cheerful, young man," father Amos replied, "And now your full attention's begun; In the days of my youth I practiced my aim, So I can shoot the balls off a flea with my gun, Now DANCE, ya damned little punk!"

You raise one of the deepest issues in metaphysics--the nature of our spiritual connections. I think transcendant spiritual states are capable of complete union between beings, a condition of complete affinity unalloyed by any distance; but that such a state is easily do-able or undoable by the transcended soul, not a default condition of one-ness.

Very well, thank you!!! Been spending A LOT of time in the 'Basement'(rehearsing). Got a concert to do, mid February. Just met with a female vocalist, from New Zealand, earlier tonight. She's working on her new album...but, she's going to come on for a 'guest appearance'..at least, that's what the plan is. I'm pulling out a song for her, written in '86, for her to try(?). She fell out over it!! I think you may have heard it. Love to send it to you..but can't E-mail it.Too big to fit. We should try sending a file, via IM...if we could ever get that together. You probably noticed that I've been away from the forum, for a bit...just now popping in for a few words, here and there.....in fact, I'm off to the 'Basement' How's your project??? Hope its doing very well....if not, I'll write one for ya'!..but from what I heard, you should be going over well!!!

Yo-ho, and the very warmest regards!!!

You know, thinking, as I sit here...I just love the shit out of playing music!!!!

Envy does not become you, Amos. You'll have to try to have something else become you. But there's a long list to chose from: lust, gluttony, despair, simony, blasphemy, heresy, hubris, extortion, embezzlement, homicide, necromancy...why, the list goes on and on and on....

Oh, well, yeah, I concede that...he has a soul. I saw it, glimmering faintly in the depths of his mind after a few drinks at the Getaway. Then he went off toward his cabin, and he came back a few minutes later dressed up as the personification of Death. Musta got inspired or sompn...

So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn Which once he wore! The glory from his gray hairs gone Forevermore! . . . Of all we loved and honored, naught Save power remains; . . . All else is gone; from those great eyes The soul has fled: . . . Walk backward, with averted gaze, And hide the shame!

Nitpicking, Amos. The point was that Hemingway could have played with the words and ended up with egg on his face. You know, dumbing down, such as taking the perfectly fine "Scylla and Charybdis" and referring to them as "a rock and a hard place."

40,000 will be pastures new and manured fresh, skies of azure and sunbeams golden 'neath clouds puffy, where boys and girls young and innocent will gambol and frolic lamb-like in wonder new, coating their shoes new with the manure fresh to the dismay of their mothers irritated.

Home again! The boys are wrestling on the oriental carpet, the cat won't let me out of her sight. There is a dusting of snow on the unused car (I hid the keys before I left). I miss the friends (and the weather) in San Diego, but it is good to be home. Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new.

(That last line, by the way, from Lycidas, is the kind of poetryfied syntax that especially irritates me. Do you agree, Amos?)